By Carol Newcomb, Senior Consultant
photo by roland
I recently consulted on a Customer Data Governance program implementation project. I must say, most companies get to the point where they design to death what governance should look like, how it should operate, who should be on which committees and who should have specific decision rights. But how often have you ever seen data governance work well? What does a governance policy even LOOK like?
Yeah, yeah, governance is the “4 pillars of People, Processes, Decisions Rights and Controls”, or it’s the “5 boxes of Alignment, Oversight, Measurability, Visibility, and Transparency”, but come on—what does it FEEL like? How does it really WORK?? What makes it happen?? How can people understand it when they are told it is so important? Who does what?
Face it. Governance is disruptive. We speak of disruptive technologies, like the cell phone or FaceBook, the Hybrid automobile, or the laptop computer. These were all disruptive in their day. They changed the way we think about social networks, distances between people and getting around. Governance is disruptive because it seizes control from the hands (silos) of data analysts, IT staff and report writers, and puts it squarely into the laps of business people who (unknowingly) need the data to make accurate and timely business decisions. Oh, and did we mention—share the data with each other? Just think of the power of sharing trusted data and how much more efficient and effective the business would become with strong dependencies instead of weak, redundant independencies.
“Don’t put those decisions in MY LAP.” We hear this all the time. Why not? It’s your bread and butter. Stand up and be accountable for the fact that you don’t trust the data, but you still report it up the chain of command. Show that you’re willing to expose who made what data decision, when, and how broad the impacts on actually are. Be proud of the data that you use to run your portion of the business. This is uncomfortable stuff. Trust? You want me to TRUST the data you lob over the fence?
Well, let me think about that and I’ll get back to you.
Governance is disruptive because it breaks down the weaknesses we have that permeate most corporations, no matter what industry you’re in. It forces people to talk to each other. It forces people whom we call Data Stewards, to beat the bushes, get people to admit what they’ve been doing and how they’ve been doing it. It wrests the decisions out of the IT cubicle and puts it squarely on the Director’s desk. Data quality? Let me show you our data quality. Ouch. Metadata? How do you spell that?
So, get used to the fact that all change is disruptive. But, the changes that are REALLY disruptive are those that break down the social and cultural barriers (aka personal barriers) that corporations have allowed to take control of their data, weakened its use as a decision-making tool, and contributed to massive cash outlays in data correction, cleaning and rework just to manipulate data so that it can serve its ultimate purpose: to measure the effectiveness of decisions made and to guide more profitable decisions in the future. It’s that simple.
Carol Newcomb is a Senior Consultant with Baseline Consulting. She specializes in developing BI and data governance programs to drive competitive advantage and fact-based decision making. Carol has consulted for a variety of health care organizations, including Rush Health Associates, Kaiser Permanente, OSF Healthcare, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and more. While working at the Joint Commission and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, she designed and conducted scientific research projects and contributed to statistical analyses.
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